image of drone with mountain in background

Verizon - Skyward

Lead Product Designer

Overview

Over five years I took our mobile applications from zero to one to scale. I designed the full mobile application including the first ever airspace authorization in partnership with the FAA.

Role

Lead Product Designer, Mobile

Team

Partnered with design systems, brand, motion, and research. Led a contract designer for Android expansion.

Partners

Federal Aviation Administration, Subject matter experts, Dozens of companies who allowed me to fly alongside their team

Context

Professional drone operations requires planning flights, getting airspace clearance, executing autonomous missions, and capturing reliable data. This happens in the field, often in remote locations. When I joined Skyward, these steps were fragmented across disconnected tools.

Pilots didn't trust automated flight. The FAA's airspace regulations were dense enough that even experienced pilots made mistakes. I needed to design one cohesive experience that made the entire workflow feel safe, clear, and trustworthy.

Pilots didn't trust automated flight. The FAA's airspace regulations were dense enough that even experienced pilots made mistakes. I designed one cohesive experience that made the entire workflow feel safe, clear, and trustworthy.

partnership enabled

35%

increased retention planning through flying

increased retention planning through flying

21

Pending deals closed

Pending deals closed

+40%

adoption in the 1st 3 months

adoption in the 1st 3 months

Building trust in automated flight

Fly for yourself

Building trust in automated flight

Building trust in automated flight

Automated flight is powerful but intimidating. In our current implementation, pilots couldn’t see if the media was being captured or trust that the mission was progressing correctly. I moved flight progress into the main map view, consolidated fragmented controls, and designed a dynamic flight component that gave pilots real-time awareness without overwhelming them.

Part 107 Certified

I earned my pilot license to understand the problem firsthand.

Flying real missions revealed something no amount of user interviews could, pilots didn't want to interact with the phone when flying. They only wanted it for support. 70% of our users were researchers who had just earned their license to do this new work, they wanted to set it and forget it = Fully automated data collection, including takeoff and landing. This insight shaped so much of the strategic direction.

image of drone with mountain in background

Use Cases

Habitat

Researchers monitoring wildlife habitat and species

Volumetrics

Mining and construction teams calculating stockpile volumes

Farming

Farmers spotting crop stress & using focussed mitigation

Reforestation

Seed-Bombing for reforestation

Exploration

How might we surface the most important flight information to pilots while flying?

Solution

Solution

Migrate flight data into the core flight experience

  1. Capture data + Play / Pause

  1. Flight path + Drone and images

  1. Embedded Communication

Weaving it all together

Weaving it together

I designed a fluid experience for users to see all their stuff and to view activities going on within their organization. It is common for pilot to ask for support, request extended authorization or to generally communicate with their team. I wanted to surface this contextual awareness for our pilots in every operation.

Outcome

Outcome

Skyward's mobile apps evolved from planning tools into a complete pilot workflow. Retention from planning to flying increased 35%, and we closed 21 enterprise clients within three months of launch.

My favorite result. The work caught Disney's attention. I partnered with their team to build a live video feature connecting directors with location scouts worldwide, letting them collaborate in real-time from anywhere. Below is an early look at the MVP.

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© 2026 Gregory Bauwens

© 2026 Gregory Bauwens